The Age of Anxiety, Part I: Philosophy and Physics

The first time I was exposed to the idea of existentialism was in English class, when we read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Interestingly, Crime and Punishment was published in 1866. This is well before WWI but I guess it was during Nietzsche's lifetime. In the novel, the characters are faced with moral dilemmas, and the value of life, religion and responsibility for one's actions are the driving themes. Raskolnikov murders and robs an old pawnbroker because he believes he will use the money better than she will and also that some people, because of extraordinary intellect or talent, are above the law or rules of society. Existentialism was very hard to understand at first, and still remains quite complex. However, after learning about it in class today, and thinking about C&P, it has become a little clearer.
One of the most thought provoking novels I have ever read is The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. It is set in Czechoslovakia during the years of Soviet invasion and communist terror. It examines Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence, one of the foundations of existentialism. If everything that happens to us will happen over and over again (we live multiple lives) then life loses its meaning. But the other side of the argument is that "what has happened once may as well not have happened at all." I like to think that we have one life, and thus our actions have meaning and importance, and I believe that this is the conclusion the characters come to at the end.
It's always fun to learn about science in history. Having studied some of the concepts presented in class, like Special and General Relativity, radioactivity, and atomic structure, it is cool to know what was going on in the world in 'regular' society at this time. These concepts boggled my mind in class (especially Relativity)--I can't imagine what those scientists felt when they realized that there were all these questions that now needed to be answered. The fact that this new age of physics that shattered beliefs about how the world around us literally worked occured at the same time when WWI had already created a disillusioned society is a strange but almost beautiful coincidence.